A Stupid Question
by Star Tsar
Summary: "All I did was offer to help, and you made it about me being stupid!" Dewey's emotions were getting the better of him.


Another adventureless saturday. Uncle Scrooge was at his Money Bin for an emergency meeting with his board of directors after rumors of an 'anti-trust investigation'. Dewey could see how somebody wouldn't trust Uncle Scrooge, but was sure it would blow over. In the meantime, it meant that for this, the third weekend in a row, there was no adventure to be had and no daring do to be done. Uncle Donald was spending the day in therapy (which the boys weren't allowed to call 'therapy') and even Mom was out with Webby, doing whatever - and whatever was being done couldn't be done with Dewey around, which Mom made that very clear - so all Dewey could 'dewey' was try to keep his bored brain from leaking out.

Louie was all but catatonic, nursing a diet pep in front of the television, and Dewey didn't have even a fraction of the attention span required to watch the third weekly marathon of 'Ottoman Empire' reruns.

Beakley? No.

All that left was Huey, who had been busy, secretive and irritable for the past week, working on some sort of science project for his gifted class (not the kind of 'gifted' class Dewey used to be in, but an accelerated program for geniuses).

"Geniuses like my brother," Dewey thought proudly.

Maybe Huey could use some help? That might have been why he was so annoyed all week - because he had to work all alone, with no one even offering to help.

Dewey shot up from the sofa and patted Louie's knee. No reaction.

"I'm going to check up with Huey."

A mumble? Dewey might have heard Louie mumble something in response, that time. Maybe just a meaningless noise conferring acknowledgement? Whatever, it didn't matter. Dewey started jogging to Huey's lab/study/special-extra-room-because-he's-the-good-one.

Huey got everything he wante-... needed for his education, and why not? Huey deserved all of his nerdy science stuff, and why wouldn't he have his own room to put it in? There was too much of it to put in their bedroom, anyway.

He deserved it all. Really, he did. Huey might have been born genius, but he still worked hard to learn so much and do so well.

Dewey knew more than anyone how hard it was to learn. So he was proud of his brother.

He had telescopes and microscopes and spectroscopes and gyroscopes, and a chemistry set. Among other instruments that Huey never explained the names or purposes of-

"Dewey, what are you doing?" Huey looked back. "You've been standing in the doorway for two minutes, silent."

"Huh? Oh, I, uh… What are you doing?" Dewey flounced up to look over his brother's shoulder. Huey had been hunched over the aforementioned chemistry set, specially arrayed with petri dishes and some glass box, and what looked like an sucked-up empty pouch of red-

"Trying to isolate and discover a new type of polyethylenophagic enzyme," Huey said as if it were obvious, gesturing at the gizmos and apparatuses on his desk. He only used that kind of tone when he was annoyed.

"Is that what you've been doing all week?" Dewey knew better than to get offended just because Hubert was stressed out.

"It's important!" Huey must've taken that as a challenge. "'Polyethylenophagic' means plastic-eating! This research could help end pollution! And if I do it, my entry will win the contes- the national competition I'm doing this for, and my paper will get published in an academic journal, so I can get into CIT and earn my Ph.D. in Physics and start supporting you and Louie for the rest of your lives!"

Huey was getting mad, change the subject!

"Couldn't Uncle Scrooge just donate a building or something to get you into CIT?" Not Dewey's best work, but it seemed to confuse Huey for a moment.

"...It's Uncle Scrooge," Huey had a good point. "It's a longshot, anyway. My incubator just broke down for the fourth time this week, the yeast keeps getting contaminated, I'm almost out of blood for the agar plates..."

"Can I help?" asked Dewey.

"It's fine, Dewey. If I need someone to get trapped in a filing cabinet, then I'll call you," Huey condescended, sarcastic and hurtful.

"Why would… why did you say that?" Dewey could feel something welling up in his chest.

"What?" asked Huey, genuinely unaware.

"All I did was offer to help, and you made it about me being stupid!" Dewey's emotions were getting the better of him.

"Yeah! I did! Because you _are_ stupid!" Huey shouted back, still sounding sarcastic but meaning every word.

Dewey tried to think of a retort, but couldn't, and this only upset him more. He punched Huey's shoulder, hard.

"Agh! You-...!" Huey launched himself at his little brother, socking him in the gut before using the momentum to hurl himself and Dewey to the ground.

A few tense seconds of shouting, punching, kneeing and plucking passed before the commotion got anyone's attention.

"Boys! What are y-... Boys!" Mom was trying to disentangle Dewey and Huey before either noticed she had even arrived. They were too caught up in the fight to care, though.

But it was starting to wear on Dewey, the aching gut and sore ribs - Huey always went for the ribs - and Mom would only get madder if they didn't stop soon.

"Get off of me you m-moron!" Huey tensed up and pushed his brother off, into Mom's restraining arms.

Dewey, as much as he wanted the fight to end, couldn't let it end like that, and struggled hard against his mother to stage another assault on Huey.

"Dewey! Stop! Dewey, I said stop it!" Mom shouted, with Webby watching from the doorway.

"I was just trying to work when he attacked me, for no reason!" Huey straightened out his red polo and played innocent like always.

"No! H-he…! No!" Dewey struggled in more senses than one. Mom wasn't really going to take Huey's side, was she? Not again?

"Dewey, stop it! Leave your brother alone!" Of course she was.

"But… But…" Dewey had stopped fighting it.

"I don't want to hear it! Go to your room! We'll talk about this later," ordered Della, pushing him out of her favorite son's study.

"Fine!" Dewey ran off.

"Dewey!" Webby called.


End file.
